1. Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to content management systems, and more specifically relates to content reuse in a content management system.
2. Background Art
A content management system (CMS) allows many users to efficiently share electronic content such as text, audio files, video files, pictures, graphics, etc. Content management systems typically control access to content in a repository. A user may generate content, and when the content is checked into the repository, the content may be subsequently processed by the CMS according to predefined rules. A user may also check out content from the repository, or link to content in the repository while generating content. The rules in a CMS assure that content that comes into or out of the system or that is linked to meets desired criteria specified in the rules.
Known content management systems check their rules when content comes into or out of the repository. If a rule is satisfied, the CMS may perform subsequent processing on the content. Known content management systems may include rules related to bursting, linking, and synchronization. Bursting rules govern how a document is bursted, or broken into individual chunks, when the document is imported or checked into the repository. By bursting a document into chunks, the individual chunks may be potentially reused later by a different author. Linking rules are used for importing and associating objects related to a CMS document based on particular elements or attributes from the document as specified by the rules. For example, an XML document that references external images can take advantage of linking rules so that relationships between the XML content and the external images are automatically created when the document is imported or checked into the repository. Another kind of linking rule governs what content in a repository a user may link to in a document that will be subsequently checked into the repository. Synchronization rules govern synchronization between content and metadata related to the content. For example, a synchronization rule may specify that whenever a specified CMS attribute is changed, a particular piece of XML in the content should be automatically updated with that attribute's value.
When a link is created to a chunk in the repository, the link may use a floating or a fixed relationship. A floating relationship allows the document to always include the latest, or current, version of the chunk referenced by the link. When a change is made to the chunk, and the change becomes the new version, then a floating relationship for the link enables the document to use the new version automatically. A fixed relationship for a link ties the document to a specific version of the chunk. When a change is made to the chunk, and the change becomes the new version, the document does not see the change and continues to link in the old version.
In any case, the user is only aware of the single chunk that is linked into their document, not of similar chunks in the repository that may contain better or more relevant information. For example, a different user may have created a new chunk with updated information instead of updating the existing chunk, in effect outdating the existing chunk. Without a way to indicate to a user that there are outdated elements in a document, users will continue to suffer from including information in their documents that may become or is already outdated.